Devotion: (Romans 3:21-24) “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness form God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

Ultimately there is ONE thing that I have to absolutely know: I need to know where I stand with God.

And where we stand is not very good! Unfortunately, not one of us is “good enough” by God’s standards. God’s standard is perfection! If left to ourselves, we would stand before God as condemned for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

But God didn’t want it that way. He did not want to condemn us. And so He sent Jesus to save us! Jesus lived the perfect life we could not live and paid the punishment of hell which we deserved. By doing so Jesus won for us the righteousness which we need and God gives it to us as a gift! It is free! It is not something we have to earn! So now, we believers stand before God as perfect, as righteous because of Jesus and His work!

Almost 500 years ago God used the Word to convince a man named Martin Luther of those wonderful truths. Thank God He has convinced you of those truths, too!